Nearly 70 percent of ocean pollutants are plastics such as soda bottles, straws and beverage cups, the Society of Wilderness said on Thursday, urging the public to use less plastic.
The top three kinds of waste in the ocean are plastic lids, plastic bottles and cigarette butts, the society said, citing data from International Coastal Cleanup, the largest volunteer effort to clean up the world’s beaches and waterways.
Cleanup statistics from over the past five years showed that the amount of single-use plastics has dropped significantly — with plastic straws falling 27 percent from last year — but plastics still represent almost 70 percent of ocean waste, society executive director Liu Yueh-mei (劉月梅) said at a four-day exhibition staged in Taipei’s Songshan Cultural and Creative Park (松山文創園區).
Photo courtesy of the Society of Wilderness
The decrease can be attributed to government policies worldwide that seek to reduce plastic use, but policies can only do so much, she added.
Government restrictions on the use of plastic and discounts offered to customers who bring their own reusable water bottles are external incentives, Liu said.
“After knowing the enormous damage that plastic has caused the environment, people should develop a drive that will push them to achieve sustainability, from within themselves,” Liu said.
“For example, people can carry reusable dining utensils with them,” she added.
The Environmental Protection Administration’s Department of Waste Management aims to manage plastic bottle lids — the No. 1 source of ocean pollution, agency Deputy Director-General Liu Jui-hsiang (劉瑞祥) said.
“We will learn from practices in other countries, such as using the same material used in bottles to produce the lids, or producing bottles with non-removable lids,” he said.
Next year, the government plans to tighten the ban on using plastic bags, plastic cups, plastic straws and disposable utensils, he said, adding that the government hopes to completely phase out the use of these plastic products by 2030.
The new policy would increase the amount of discounts offered to customers with reusable water bottles, he added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching